And what exactly has France done to fight ISIS anyway? Nothing. I guess that's a little better than what they did in Rwanda to support the genocide there... Edit: nevermind this paragraph

> And what exactly has France done to fight ISIS anyway?

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_internationale_en_Ir... (curiously the English language article doesn't mention French forces in the outline, but does in the text)

Just sent an aircraft carrier, some ships and planes, and special forces. And intelligence. Contributed more than anyone outside of the US and local forces like YPG. Led one of the first coalitions that were extremely wide (including everyone from Bahrain through Belgium and Japan to Russia and China). But sure, you haven't heard about it, so they didn't do anything

> I guess that's a little better than what they did in Rwanda to support the genocide there

Wait, is France bad when it intervenes or when it doesn't intervene? In Rwanda they didn't "support" the genocide of course, just didn't do much to stop it after supporting the faction that commited it before.

But fighting on the Russian side is illegal and is punishable by long prison terms even if you didn't commit any war crimes there.

That applies to all residents of the country - including Russian citizens.

That is why they were put under surveillance when they came back to France.

Here is a reference in French: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_du_8_d%C3%A9cembre_202...

Ultimately it's a bit more complicated than good people fighting versus evil people (and as far as I'm concerned, they were effectively fighting for a US proxy against another US proxy).

The Taliban are fighting ISIS... do you consider the Taliban to be radical ?

Some people in the thread should open a book or two, we're not in "bad guys vs good guys" world

Citation needed of self-defence killings im France being prosecuted passionately and unfairly.

90% of self defense cases end in the tribunal, meaning that the judges saw it as not-self-defense. The biggest factor in all this is proportionality: if you killed someone in self defense but were not yourself having your life threatened, you will go to court.

Running away is a good idea for many reasons, but very few US states or foreign jurisdictions have a duty to retreat as you’re describing here.

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000...

After that remark became massively controversial he attempted to walk his statement back and claim that he just meant that he said he was against the presumption of self defence (which seems to imply he supports a presumption of guilt in self defence cases).

https://www.europe1.fr/politique/oppose-a-la-legitime-defens...

Basically every country in the world that has somewhat stable law and order has a history of prosecuting dubious self defence cases. The requirement for the state to have a monopoly on violence might sound edgy, but it’s not a controversial idea, it’s a requirement for being able to enforce the law. Self defence is an almost universally justifiable reason for a person to violate the monopoly, and it’s not hard to understand why government agencies can end up viewing it as an existential threat, not to the country or its people, but to their own institutions.

For example, this is professor Wael Hallaq of Columbia University describing some defining characteristics of the modern state:

"there are five form-properties possessed by the modern state without which it cannot, at this point in history, be properly conceived. These are:

(1) its constitution as a historical experience that is fairly specific and local;

(2) its sovereignty and the metaphysics to which it has given rise;

(3) its legislative monopoly and the related feature of monopoly over so-called legitimate violence;

(4) its bureaucratic machinery; and

(5) its cultural- hegemonic engagement in the social order, including its production of the national subject"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_and_the_Rwandan_genocid...

Absent this, one of three conditions exist:

1. There is no monopoly. In which case violence is widespread, and there is no state.

2. There is no legitimacy. In which case violence is capricious.

3. Some non-state power or agent assumes the monopoly on legitimate violence. In which case it becomes, by definition The State.

You might want to consider what a "state" which lacks a monopoly on the legitimate claim to the monopoly on force would look like. To what other entity would it cede that legitimate claim, and/or how would it prevent other entities from enacting capricious violence, as has occurred from time to time in the world, and even now.

The state's claim is to legitimacy. A capricious exercise would be an abrogation of legitimacy

Weber, Max (1978). Roth, Guenther; Wittich, Claus (eds.). Economy and Society. Berkeley: U. California Press. p. 54.

<https://archive.org/details/economysociety00webe/page/54/mod...>

The "monopoly on violence" or "monopoly on force" short-hands are a much more recent emergence, and seem to originate with Murray Rothbard (1960s) and Robert Nozick (1970s), though widespread usage of that phrase really only begins to take off after 1980, per Google's Ngram Viewer: <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=monopoly+on+vi...>

That shorthand has become quite popular, and is often cited by Libertarians as key to their adopting that particular ideology.[1] As expressed by them the formulation is both incorrect and misleading.

________________________________

Notes:

1. E.g., Penn Jillette, <https://www.newsweek.com/penn-jillette-how-became-libertaria...> and Charles Koch <https://www.newsweek.com/penn-jillette-how-became-libertaria...>.

In part, because the YPG is seen by the french state as a terrorist group, for various political reasons, and also because having leftists trained in handling weapons is seemingly more terrifying to the government than having neonazis trained in handling weapons. Make of that what you will.

To appease the Turks I assume?

They have not been any evidence of criminal activities by those people. So far, all what they have against them is "they are protective about their privacy".

That's a terrible reason to arrest and maintain people in jail.

A crime is not something you evaluate morally. It has a very narrow definition that is codified by each society it is been judged in.

Nine EU countries made similar rules, though I don't know how many still have it in effect. Any citizen/resident of Denmark is still prohibited from going to the conflict zones of Syria and Iraq.

I am not familiar with French law. Is that literally a crime or are you saying it as an expression?

A cynical person would say it's because corrupt leaders are afraid of potential consequences for their actions. But there's likely other, more mundane reasons too. :)

Now, depending on who you ask, the PYD/YPG is "good, because they fight ISIS" (e.g. the official stance of the US) or "Terrorists, because they are basically just extensions of the PKK" (what Turkey says).

This leads to a lot of inconsistency in foreign policy within NATO. For example Sweden is pressured to crack down on PYD/YPG to be admitted into NATO. The US, like many others, have supported the YPG/PYD in the fight against ISIS. So I imagine Turkey is also pressuring other NATO countries like France in this case, to go after PKK collaborators including the adjacent syrian orgs.

So basically: why are the people volunteering to fight ISIS seen as terrorists within NATO? I'd guess these days to a large extent because Turkey says so.

Fighting for a foreign nation or mercenaries is illegal, no matter if you're fighting the "bad guys"

Like joining the Taliban ?